jsausley
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2010
- Messages
- 1,222
- Location
- Burlington, NC, United States
- Car(s)
- '16 Audi S5, '14 CC R-Line, '12 Ariel Atom 3
After a long and difficult wait beginning in August, my 2012 Volkswagen Golf R, Riley (the affectionate name that my friends and I have given her) finally arrived today from her birthplace in Wolfsburg, Germany.
I first inquired about the car with my dealer (Maxwell Volkswagen, Burlington, NC) in the middle of August. At that point, no official deposits on the Rs had been taken, but my dealer informed me that I would be placed on the top of the list if he were to receive an allotment (only 5,000 Rs are being made for U.S. market). In the next few weeks, I scoured the internet for all of the R-based information that I could find, browsing forums like VW Vortex and YouTube for pictures and/or videos of the Euro-spec Rs. In the period between first contacting my dealer and actually dropping a deposit on a car, I decided that the car I wanted was a 2-door R in Rising Blue and with all of the available options.
During the first week of October, while on a trip to Biloxi, MS for the Cruising The Coast event, I received a call from Maxwell Volkswagen. A salesman told me that the dealership had already received an allotment for an R and that I would have first refusal. I asked him about the color and options and he told me that, unfortunately, they had already put down 2-door, Rising Blue, loaded.
I told him great, that it was exactly the car I wanted, and that I could give him a credit card number over the phone for a deposit. I put $1,000 down and he told me that the car would go into production during the first week of November.
For the next month, everything was quiet. I kept asking for updates but nothing changed. Finally, I joined VW Vortex and found the threads there about tracking the car. This helped immensely (I think - maybe it made me more anxious because I heard about everyone else's status updates and I still didn't have my commission number, so I couldn't get mine from anyone but the dealer himself). After fishing for updates from the dealer, I told him that I'd be grateful to get my commission number so that I didn't have to bother him quite so much. He obliged, of course, which allowed me to keep up with my car that much better.
On December 7th, the car's status updated to in transit, which meant that the car was leaving the factory and due soon for a ship. At this point things got cloudy - if the car was loaded on the ship in the next few days it was either on the Firmament Ace or Garnet Leader. With Volkswagens, if you can line up your car's ship load date with that of the shipping schedule out of Emden, Germany, you can find out what ship your car is on. Then you're able to track your ship through VW Logistics and get a rough estimate for when it should be in port wherever it is to be delivered. But I had no concrete evidence telling me which ship the car was on, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped that it was one of these. About three or four weeks passed and I heard nothing from anyone.
Suddenly, in late December, I got an e-mail from the salesman that told me my car had updated status again and was showing in port. I still don't know which ship the car actually came on, but for some reason it took quite a long time (according to the status updates) to get from the factory to the port. Regardless, he informed me that it should be loaded on a truck within a week or two and that delivery should only be a few days after that. My status showed an ETA of January 24th, 2012.
After the holds (all Golf R's were held in port for a few weeks until enough of them arrived to make a semi-wide release) were released by VW on Friday, January 6th, things got exciting. I knew my car was in Georgia so it was just a question of how long it would be before a truck picked it up. The weekend went by (maybe one of the longest weekends of my life) and on Monday I got a text message from the dealer telling me that the car had loaded on a truck and was "in transit inland." He said he expected it on Wednesday.
Right on cue, Wednesday rolled around and at 9:00 AM and some change I got another text message from the dealer. It was a picture of Riley all wrapped up in a delivery bag. "Come by the dealership when you can," he said.
So I did. When I got there, we began unwrapping the car. I don't know exactly how many R's are in the States right now, but I know it's not that many. On VW Vortex, we've kept a listing of everyone who has ordered a car and how many have come in. My car is #3 out of 135 cars on that list. We do know that no cars have been delivered to the West Coast yet (the first ship scheduled to arrive there is in a few days - around January 20th). If I were to wager a guess, as of January 12th, there are probably less than 100 cars that have been delivered, with at least that many waiting in port to be picked up.
Anyway, after we unwrapped the car, I got to start it for the first time and sit in it, and immediately fell in love. It was everything I thought it would be.
Unfortunately, the dealer told me that they couldn't take delivery that day, that they needed some time to get the car prepped and I would need to come back the next day. I said that was fine, I needed to get my insurance and whatnot all filed away (and it was raining on Wednesday), so we agreed that I'd pick it up at 1:00 PM on Thursday, January 12th.
I did just that. Here she is:
http://img825.imageshack.**/img825/2214/dscn1770ch.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.**/img23/61/dscn1753m.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.**/img6/8108/dscn1752j.jpg
http://img341.imageshack.**/img341/4118/dscn1754z.jpg
http://img72.imageshack.**/img72/6148/dscn1755t.jpg
http://img836.imageshack.**/img836/3397/dscn1756b.jpg
http://img829.imageshack.**/img829/4335/dscn1757vm.jpg
http://img195.imageshack.**/img195/2594/dscn1758q.jpg
http://img802.imageshack.**/img802/1295/dscn1759.jpg
http://img196.imageshack.**/img196/6674/dscn1760u.jpg
http://img13.imageshack.**/img13/55/dscn1761uh.jpg
http://img525.imageshack.**/img525/199/dscn1762y.jpg
http://img545.imageshack.**/img545/5200/dscn1763u.jpg
http://imageshack.**/photo/my-images/835/dscn1764a.jpg/
http://img841.imageshack.**/img841/373/dscn1765m.jpg
http://img545.imageshack.**/img545/6386/dscn1766x.jpg
http://img52.imageshack.**/img52/8620/dscn1774k.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.**/img88/6089/dscn1777h.jpg
http://img94.imageshack.**/img94/4083/dscn1779l.jpg
http://img827.imageshack.**/img827/1107/dscn1795t.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.**/img14/977/dscn1798r.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.**/img42/6065/dscn1801rz.jpg
http://img835.imageshack.**/img835/4343/dscn1764a.jpg
I first inquired about the car with my dealer (Maxwell Volkswagen, Burlington, NC) in the middle of August. At that point, no official deposits on the Rs had been taken, but my dealer informed me that I would be placed on the top of the list if he were to receive an allotment (only 5,000 Rs are being made for U.S. market). In the next few weeks, I scoured the internet for all of the R-based information that I could find, browsing forums like VW Vortex and YouTube for pictures and/or videos of the Euro-spec Rs. In the period between first contacting my dealer and actually dropping a deposit on a car, I decided that the car I wanted was a 2-door R in Rising Blue and with all of the available options.
During the first week of October, while on a trip to Biloxi, MS for the Cruising The Coast event, I received a call from Maxwell Volkswagen. A salesman told me that the dealership had already received an allotment for an R and that I would have first refusal. I asked him about the color and options and he told me that, unfortunately, they had already put down 2-door, Rising Blue, loaded.
I told him great, that it was exactly the car I wanted, and that I could give him a credit card number over the phone for a deposit. I put $1,000 down and he told me that the car would go into production during the first week of November.
For the next month, everything was quiet. I kept asking for updates but nothing changed. Finally, I joined VW Vortex and found the threads there about tracking the car. This helped immensely (I think - maybe it made me more anxious because I heard about everyone else's status updates and I still didn't have my commission number, so I couldn't get mine from anyone but the dealer himself). After fishing for updates from the dealer, I told him that I'd be grateful to get my commission number so that I didn't have to bother him quite so much. He obliged, of course, which allowed me to keep up with my car that much better.
On December 7th, the car's status updated to in transit, which meant that the car was leaving the factory and due soon for a ship. At this point things got cloudy - if the car was loaded on the ship in the next few days it was either on the Firmament Ace or Garnet Leader. With Volkswagens, if you can line up your car's ship load date with that of the shipping schedule out of Emden, Germany, you can find out what ship your car is on. Then you're able to track your ship through VW Logistics and get a rough estimate for when it should be in port wherever it is to be delivered. But I had no concrete evidence telling me which ship the car was on, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped that it was one of these. About three or four weeks passed and I heard nothing from anyone.
Suddenly, in late December, I got an e-mail from the salesman that told me my car had updated status again and was showing in port. I still don't know which ship the car actually came on, but for some reason it took quite a long time (according to the status updates) to get from the factory to the port. Regardless, he informed me that it should be loaded on a truck within a week or two and that delivery should only be a few days after that. My status showed an ETA of January 24th, 2012.
After the holds (all Golf R's were held in port for a few weeks until enough of them arrived to make a semi-wide release) were released by VW on Friday, January 6th, things got exciting. I knew my car was in Georgia so it was just a question of how long it would be before a truck picked it up. The weekend went by (maybe one of the longest weekends of my life) and on Monday I got a text message from the dealer telling me that the car had loaded on a truck and was "in transit inland." He said he expected it on Wednesday.
Right on cue, Wednesday rolled around and at 9:00 AM and some change I got another text message from the dealer. It was a picture of Riley all wrapped up in a delivery bag. "Come by the dealership when you can," he said.
So I did. When I got there, we began unwrapping the car. I don't know exactly how many R's are in the States right now, but I know it's not that many. On VW Vortex, we've kept a listing of everyone who has ordered a car and how many have come in. My car is #3 out of 135 cars on that list. We do know that no cars have been delivered to the West Coast yet (the first ship scheduled to arrive there is in a few days - around January 20th). If I were to wager a guess, as of January 12th, there are probably less than 100 cars that have been delivered, with at least that many waiting in port to be picked up.
Anyway, after we unwrapped the car, I got to start it for the first time and sit in it, and immediately fell in love. It was everything I thought it would be.
Unfortunately, the dealer told me that they couldn't take delivery that day, that they needed some time to get the car prepped and I would need to come back the next day. I said that was fine, I needed to get my insurance and whatnot all filed away (and it was raining on Wednesday), so we agreed that I'd pick it up at 1:00 PM on Thursday, January 12th.
I did just that. Here she is:
http://img825.imageshack.**/img825/2214/dscn1770ch.jpg
http://img23.imageshack.**/img23/61/dscn1753m.jpg
http://img6.imageshack.**/img6/8108/dscn1752j.jpg
http://img341.imageshack.**/img341/4118/dscn1754z.jpg
http://img72.imageshack.**/img72/6148/dscn1755t.jpg
http://img836.imageshack.**/img836/3397/dscn1756b.jpg
http://img829.imageshack.**/img829/4335/dscn1757vm.jpg
http://img195.imageshack.**/img195/2594/dscn1758q.jpg
http://img802.imageshack.**/img802/1295/dscn1759.jpg
http://img196.imageshack.**/img196/6674/dscn1760u.jpg
http://img13.imageshack.**/img13/55/dscn1761uh.jpg
http://img525.imageshack.**/img525/199/dscn1762y.jpg
http://img545.imageshack.**/img545/5200/dscn1763u.jpg
http://imageshack.**/photo/my-images/835/dscn1764a.jpg/
http://img841.imageshack.**/img841/373/dscn1765m.jpg
http://img545.imageshack.**/img545/6386/dscn1766x.jpg
http://img52.imageshack.**/img52/8620/dscn1774k.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.**/img88/6089/dscn1777h.jpg
http://img94.imageshack.**/img94/4083/dscn1779l.jpg
http://img827.imageshack.**/img827/1107/dscn1795t.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.**/img14/977/dscn1798r.jpg
http://img42.imageshack.**/img42/6065/dscn1801rz.jpg
http://img835.imageshack.**/img835/4343/dscn1764a.jpg
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